


Bantis Zōbrie Issa

by Adadzio



Series: Character/Relationship Studies [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Psychological Trauma, Spoilers for Book 5 - A Dance with Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:39:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/pseuds/Adadzio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Stannis Baratheon watched her, and he wondered how men became monsters.</i>
</p><p>The night is dark, and sometimes, not even fire can burn away the terrors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bantis Zōbrie Issa

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompts** : "Mel is the one having nightmares or something and Stannis has to be comforting in some way"/"Mel actually enjoys sex with Stannis, not because he’s particularly great at it, but because he really cares for her, which is a pretty new experience for her."/ also protective! Stannis
> 
>  **Note** : this is darker than I usually write. Not graphic, but please heed the archive warnings for possible triggers. 
> 
> xx

“Why are the Lady Melisandre’s apartments  _darkened?”_

The king was shouting, though the servant was but two paces away. The lad shook in his boots, and not from the chill of the air. He glanced nervously at the lady’s window. It was indeed pitch black. “Your Grace…I-I don’t—"

 _Was she somewhere outside the Castle, unguarded?_ “Is she not in her rooms at this hour?”

“I truly don’t know, your Grace…the lady requested to be undisturbed this evening, said so to all those in her service…”

Stannis narrowed his eyes at him. “Listen well, boy. Before you are dismissed from her service, evening or dawn, you will attend to her fires. They’re never to be left dwindling. _Ever_. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes, Sire.”

“Make yourself useful _somewhere_ ,” he barked. The lad scurried away as if a rabid dog was on his heels. _Incompetent, all of them,_ Stannis sneered. The corridor fell silent once again, and he searched for other straggling men, namely brothers of the Night’s Watch. There were none.

He did not bother knocking. As he pushed into the dark chamber, the sight of her scarlet hair eased his anxiety, but only slightly. She did not appear to hear him.

 _"Oh, it's dark the night is,"_   she was singing softly, _"and it's dark my heart is…"_ To his surprise she was nearly doubled over in her chair before the fire. He inhaled slightly and stopped to listen to her lilting voice.  _"But the red sun rises when the hour is come…oh_ _, the red sun rises, and the dead rise…"_

One lone log burned, offering a feeble glow of light, but none of her candles were lit. “My lady?” he finally called. 

Her shoulders stiffened, recognizing his voice immediately. She straightened up—as if caught in a crime—but kept her back to him. “Your Grace,” she attempted a light tone, but it was evident that she'd been crying.

“Don’t,” he ordered as she began to rise from her chair. He strode around the fire to kneel in front of her himself.

“My king...” she murmured. “You should not be in such a position.”

He ignored the protestation, taking in her tear-streaked cheeks, white hands twisted in her lap like strangled doves. He pried them apart, horrified to find the palms stained with blood. “What’s happened?” he demanded. Many scenarios came to mind, most notably that one of the rogue men at the Wall had finally forced himself upon her.  _I will geld he who committed this crime, I will remove any hand that’s touched her, I will kill—_

“It’s nothing of concern, certainly not to your Grace.” Her red lips curled up at his obvious panic, but even that action seemed forced.

“I find my priestess in such a state, what am I supposed to think?” She tilted her head calmly, and he grew impatient. “It most certainly is my concern!” 

Melisandre finally dropped her false composure. “I— " He watched her pale neck tense under the ruby as she swallowed. The movement fascinated him. “It is a natural consequence of my devotion to the flames,” she insisted.

Stannis snorted. “Now you lie. I’ve watched you over your fires many a night.” He felt himself flush with the confession, but continued all the same. “Never have the visions driven you to such distress.” The priestess said nothing, so he tried again. “Where did this come from?” He ran a finger lightly down her red palm, feeling his ears burn at the intimacy of it. _Don’t be absurd,_ he reproached himself. They’d done far more shameful things than brush hands. Now was not the time for modesty. “Whose blood?” he demanded.

She studied him with those alarming red eyes. “Mine own.” To his shock she pulled her skirts up and brought his hand between her thighs. “It comes from here,” she said simply. Stannis jerked his hand away, partly because her skin was burning, as always, but mostly out of revulsion. “Fear not, my king,” she laughed. “My flower is not in bloom.”

He still had a sour expression on his face. “Are you sure?”

“I believe I know the difference,” she said wryly, but for some reason she fell pale. “This happens when my visions are most intense.” The memory of that recent experience seemed to be returning to her. “When I awoke from this vision, my hands were fisted there, and I thought…” He vaguely wondered why she was telling him this.

_Because I asked her. And because she trusts me._

The red woman shook her head slightly. “So much blood, I thought I might be dying,” she finished. Stannis saw tears in her eyes again, and nauseating dread settled in the pit of his stomach.

“What did you see?”

“Truly, my king, it’s a silly matter, unrelated to your cause. You should not trouble yourself— ”

“I’ll decide that for myself." His teeth were grinding against each other.

Melisandre sighed, but she was still silent for a long while.  _This woman tests my patience—_

“I saw the girl.” He lifted an eyebrow, and she swallowed again. “Lot Seven,” was all she said, but it was enough. 

How many nights had he wished he'd never learned the significance of those two words? Too many to count. Alas he'd imagined the dark story behind them—of course he had. Her general past was no secret to him, not even to others on Dragonstone, though he and Selyse took great pains to diminish the details, kill the rumors, build up respect for the red woman. _The Lady Melisandre_ , she was now. No longer just a priestess of the Red Temple in some land so distant and infamous it seemed unreal.

But there was more. That part of her that only he knew about. She never spoke of it, no, never even told him outright. He’d tried to learn the respectable way, of course. But even asking which city she was from had yielded no answers.

"It is in my name," she had replied with a smirk. 

"No one is _from_ Asshai," he retorted. "Where originally?"

"I…do not know, Lord Stannis."

What was most unnerving was that she seemed to be telling the truth.

So the mystery remained, long after she came into the service of House Baratheon. It wasn’t until much later he’d learned, and only because her fires had been neglected those nights. Rare nights they were, the ones she’d given into exhaustion, eyes fluttering shut as the fire died out, only to wake screaming in the darkness. It was not like his own haunting nightmares, which could be quieted with a soothing touch; no, these were violent fits of panic, during which she'd spill some hidden part of herself. Sometimes it was a word, sometimes a sentence, often just silent tears, but he gathered them all and guarded them tight, each precious piece of his priestess, until he’d constructed an idea of her past. The picture was not nearly as beautiful as she, not by any stretch of the imagination. Still he held her those nights, watching with awe as his assured counsellor was reduced to little more than a hysterical girl in his stiff embrace. Sometimes it was the better part of an hour before she woke fully and composed herself, apologizing with that serene smile. _Forgive me, my king, a foolish nightmare._

And now…  

 _“Lot Seven,”_ she had said. She was watching him intently. 

 _Say something, you fool._ “What happened to her?”

Melisandre's face fell, and he immediately regretted asking. That scarlet gaze flickered down to her lap, to the blood that had blended into her robes there. Stannis desperately wanted to avoid analyzing this new clue, but his mind involuntarily matched it up to the other pieces.  _He is cold, mother,_ she'd whispered one night. _Cold, and blue, and so still._

The realization was a stab of pain deep in his chest.  _No_ , he thought stubbornly. _No_.

“If it please your Grace, I’d rather not speak of it.”

The king shook his head, his throat feeling oddly constricted. “Then don’t.”

She looked up at him again, and his heart skipped in a strange rhythm. He felt as if he were looking into her eyes for the first time. “I am tired,” she admitted, face blank, and for some reason that sharpened the pain in his chest. “Will you stay with me? In my bed?” He need not ask why, nor could he refuse. She never slept without his presence. He only nodded, bending down to remove his boots. “I’ll tend to the fire,” she decided quietly.

When she was finally settled in bed he reluctantly shifted under the furs with her. She reached out to him with those bloodstained hands. The king winced. _I wish she would wash them_. Still, he half-obliged her, laying flat as a board with hands neatly folded, allowing her to rest by his side. Neither said a word. It was unnecessary. After long, silent minutes, he heard her breathing even out. He sneaked a glance at her burrowing against his arm, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, the way her breath stirred strands of copper hair from her face.

Stannis Baratheon watched her, and he wondered how men became monsters.

The question plagued his mind even as he fell into his own fitful sleep, her red hands haunting his dreams. He didn’t know how many hours had passed before his restlessness was shattered by the very real disturbance of Melisandre shrieking. He jerked out of bed, reaching instinctively for the hilt of Lightbringer, and cursed when he grasped only air. He quickly realized, however, that weapons were useless in this particular situation.

“My lady,” he soothed, though he knew she would not hear him for some time. One of his hands found her waist in this familiar routine, pulling her firmly against his chest, while the other attempted to restrain her arms. Her eyes were still closed, though tears were already leaking from them, and she was speaking under her breath in another tongue. Stannis sighed, holding her tight as she thrashed through the nightmare. He glanced wearily at the window. _Still not dawn?_   He wished it were. His priestess cherished those quiet moments before the rising of the sun, before she went out to lead the queen's men and his own wife in their morning devotions.

 _"A sword of crimson cuts in twain the gray,_ " she would sing, " _banners of shadow hosts, and now, the day…"  
_

If he closed his eyes he could pretend the strange words of her nightmare were part of that melodic prayer, begging R'hllor to break the night.  _ _"_ Kesrio syt bantis zōbrie issa se ossȳngnoti lēdys._"  Yes, she would raise her pale hands in supplication as she always did, so certain and strong.  _For the night is dark and full of terrors._

Stannis wondered just how long this night would last. 

“Eleven,” she cried suddenly, startling him. “Eleven, I am pure…” His stomach dropped, but he listened to the words that fell from her lips, tucking them away with a clenched jaw. "Daor, āeksio… _"_ Stannis recognized it as High Valyrian. To his alarm Melisandre’s hands began clawing at her own bloodied thighs, tearing at the red robes like a madwoman. "It hurts, there is blood..." She wept, and her tears burned the air around them. There was a dreadful scraping sound as her nails began drawing more blood from the pale skin. He tried to restrain her wrists in one large hand, but the action only seemed to make her more frantic.

“Daor!” He understood that much. It meant _no_. “Syt bantis zōbrie issa. _.._ ” she cried, wrestling against his grip with renewed strength.  _The night is dark._ “Please, it's so dark, zōbrie,I bleed…” Her hands clawed higher then, up to her belly, nails raking over her womb, again and again. The king felt bile rise in his throat. "Useless, vaogēdy, vaogēdy," she whispered.

 _Defiled?_ He had little time to ponder the translation, because she was doubling over, tears staining the linens. “Daor, I’ll be good,” she wept again. “I’ll destroy it, before they see…” The vile bitterness threatened him again; he thought he might be ill. “Cold, so cold...Mother said, I bled it out...” Each word was a knife in his chest, and still he bared his heart to receive them. She twisted against the bed, and he pinned her down before she could scratch at her body again. “Daor, I’ll serve well, I'll say nothing, please, _please_ …”  She was growing hysterical again.

“Melisandre,” he said, but she did not recognize his voice.

 _"_ Muña?" Her hands flew suddenly up to her neck, tearing at the ruby as if it were choking her. "It is so heavy, and cold. Please daor, daor, _daor…"_  

The king pulled her up off the bed, holding her hard against his chest once more. “Melisandre—”

“Eleven years. Vaogēdy.” She was shaking in his grasp.

Stannis screwed his eyes shut. “Melony,” he murmured into her ear, and the fight finally left her body.

“Lot Seven,” she recited.

The fire crackled softly. Stannis exhaled as the room fell quiet once more. After some moments, the priestess stirred slightly in his arms, and he knew she was finally coming to her senses. “My king?” she asked, and her voice was thick with confusion and tears. "It is so dark…"

“Yes,” he said. Melisandre shifted around in his embrace, freezing at the sight of fresh red marks as high as her belly. She looked up at him then, and he knew his own eyes betrayed his horror.

“Forgive me,” she spoke steadily. She quickly wiped all terror from her face, forcing it into a canvas of serenity once more. “I was...dreaming of the girl.”

Stannis wanted nothing more than to bolt from the room and retch. “Eleven,” he repeated.  _Shireen's age._ _  
_

There was a flash of pain in her eyes, but the priestess met his gaze without flinching. “The girl flowered early,” she said simply. 

 _A child._ He felt numb. Years of turbulent nights blended together, the pieces finally connecting in his mind. “They sold her off?”

The priestess shrugged, but he knew the action grieved her. "A slave of defiled status is a stain on a respectable house. Better use as a temple prostitute." 

 _Is that what they told her?_ The strange ache bloomed in his chest again, and rage began to cloud his better judgment. "It was your owner, wasn't it?" he demanded. Melisandre's head snapped up, but he continued furiously, "Trying to cover his own shame— "

“No,” her red eyes hardened. “That girl was not me.” Those vows came flooding back anyway, pounding in his ears like a dark battle cry.  _I will kill the man, the monster who did this, I will kill him, I will kill him—_

She caught sight of the pity in his eyes before he could conceal it. “ _No,"_ she insisted,and tore herself away from him, attempting to flee the bed. 

"Melisandre—"

"I. Said. _No._ That is not me. She is not me." He tried to pacify her, but it backfired. " _Don’t look at me that way_ ," she hissed. "Please, _please_ don't look at me that way, I am not that girl— "

He caught her as she fought against his restraint for the second time that night. _"I am not that girl!"_ She shrieked the words over and over again, until her voice was hoarse and he had to cover her mouth just to quiet her.

"Mine own red shadow," he sighed, and then she fell, overcome with silent sobs. Stannis closed his eyes when she buried her face into his neck. "You're not that girl," he agreed, arms coming up to cradle her tightly. “Be still." And she was. For a long time there was only the sound of her quiet mourning in the shadowed room. 

The stillness was broken when her lips sought his out frantically. He pulled away, frowning. “You must sleep."

“No,” she gripped his shirt. Her eyes shone like melted copper in the dark. “There is nothing for me in my dreams.” He felt her burning hands then, pulling at his breeches in desperation. “I need you,” she gasped.

The king sighed but laid her out on the bed obligingly, brushing aside her ruined silks and stroking her skin as if she were made of porcelain. He kissed her lips very lightly, then her heartbeat, her belly, each of her stained thighs. “I am unclean, my king…” The rational part of his mind agreed that she needed a long bath.

“You are not unclean,” he said instead. His mouth brushed against her battered skin, but she pulled insistently at his shoulders.

“I need you, I need you inside me…” In the next moment he was pushing into her with little finesse, as usual, but he took her with such great care that she began to weep anew. The fire had dwindled again; it was so dark that they were just silhouettes moving against each other. Only the red of her eyes called to him, and he allowed himself to grieve with her, for a girl and a child he never knew, even as the priestess arched against him. He pressed his lips to the fresh tears that escaped her eyes, gathering each one as he did her nightmares, knowing all the while he should throw them into the fire. Instead he stored up her sorrows and made them his own, branding his heart with her suffering.

He felt Melisandre tense beneath him, taut as a bow as she strained toward release, and for a moment he feared she might break. “Let go,” he urged, and she did, shuddering around him. He fell over the edge shortly after, and she clung to him all the while.

“Thank you,” she whispered, eyes falling shut. He stored that image in his mind as well, quite aware that this obsession might one day kill him. For once, though, Stannis did not feel shame where her fingers burned his skin. In the morning he’d be a king, and she would be the red woman again, determined and fierce, but for now she was no one, no one at all, and neither was he. Only the man who held her in the dark nights, catching each piece of her as she fell, sheltering her until dawn finally triumphed.

"Will you tell me your Stormland verses?" she murmured. It was frivolous; he didn't know why he even remembered such drivel as a lullaby, but there was no refusing. It always brought her peace. 

He recited the words very quietly. 

" _Mine own dweller of the night,_

_fear not when you gaze upon my sight,_

_for the dark doth carry no fright._

_As sun rises and dawn pierces nightly veil,  
_

_flicker of light that falls upon thee frail_

_does for a moment stop time as pale."_

Melisandre was already drifting off, curled against the furs like a child. He felt another small ache in his chest.  _Is this what his mother had seen as she lulled her own boys to sleep?_

Cassana's kind voice echoed in his head. 

_"The sun deep in slumber,_

_let not the dark thee cumber._

_For the stars like fire do smoulder,_

_warm to flesh of the beholder._

_In the dark storm light is your tide_

_Beneath its wing take refuge and hide_

_With it you’ll soar as fire hawk high_

_safe you're with me because you abide._

_Fear not the dark, nor wilderness or sea_

_Trust, mine own, I’ve a true hold on thee."_

He realized grimly that this would not be the last battle, but for now he drew her slumbering form into his chest.  _She will wake in my arms_ , he vowed, _and she will see only light._  She stirred slightly at the movement. 

“Sleep, my red hawk,” he sighed.

And she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Verse sources: [x](http://allpoetry.com/The-Red-Sunrise) [x](http://allpoetry.com/A-Winter-Dawn) [x](http://allpoetry.com/poem/11954380-Fire-of-dawn-by-Henri-Tagor) [x](http://allpoetry.com/poem/12189597-My-beautiful-dweller-of-the-night--by-Henri-Tagor) [x](http://allpoetry.com/poem/12036434-Fear-Not-The-dark-Im-The-light-across-The-Bay-by-Sharon-Lagueux)


End file.
